


Humming a Simple Tune

by curlsandblueyes



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: One Big Happy Family, One Shot, Other, Past Lives, Protective Siblings, Protective Younger Brothers, Short One Shot, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Siblings, Twins, coco - Freeform, protective older sister, the Rivera family - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 11:19:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15169586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curlsandblueyes/pseuds/curlsandblueyes
Summary: Imelda thinks back to when she had to put on a brave face and protect her family. Yet it was much smaller back then.





	Humming a Simple Tune

**Author's Note:**

> A little idea I had while writing the next family scene in Your Family Loves You. I feel like there isn’t many stories around other the family members and their relationships. So I just wanted to throw this out there!

Imelda hums to herself as she cleans the home. She finds that it’s an odd feeling to be doing something so mindless, after years of iron self-control over such an act. More so, she finds that she missed such a simple a thing. She used to always hum while she worked, did chores or had nothing else to do, even long before she met her husband. She hadn’t given it a second thought but found after lifting the ban she had missed doing it. The comforting habit flowing again as if she never had tried to stop. 

She found now that she didn’t like to roam about in silence when she could fill it with a simple catchy tune, or a made up one. When she was little she’d sometimes make up rhymes for herself to go along with the tunes. She never told anyone about it out of fear of being teased for something silly like that. Although, Imelda still remembers when those rhymes turned into little songs. She wasn’t the musical genius Hector was, she didn’t have quite the gift Miguel did but she could still sing, and she liked to think sometimes it wasn’t just her husband that passed on all the musical talent. 

When her Papa had died in 1916, she was left to raise her two 12 year old brothers alone. Her Mama had died a week after having the twins, growing too sick from giving birth. There were six children in the tiny orphanage in Santa Cecelia, in which all of them shared a room and the elderly woman who took care of them was barely able to pay the rent and provide enough food. One of the younger boys, a name she could not remember sadly, had died. It was the flu she remembered hearing them all say, yet the boy had been nothing but skin and bones, and barely possessed enough strength to leave his bed. She wasn’t about to watch what family she had left starve to death like that. 

So she rolled up her sleeves and did what she had too. 

The orphanage was five miles from a farm that sold fruits and vegetables to the city. Early in the morning, before the sun was close to rising, Imelda would take her brothers and their pillow cases, sneak out and head to the farm. There they would collect the apples that had fallen to the ground, pick out a few carrots and other produce filling their pillowcases. She wasn’t proud of what she did, selling the stolen food on the corner of the plaza and keeping the money aside. But she hoped she could eventually build a life of some sort for her and her little twin brothers, even at the cost of a little crime. But if she hadn’t, she feared the worse would’ve happened.

She sat now in the living room her hands in her lap and looking out the window into the courtyard. Pepita lounged about and lazily swatted her paw at some butterfly alebrije. Imelda often wondered why Pepita was so big. She had been a tiny gray kitten who had found its way into one of the pillowcases from the farm. She attached herself to Imelda quite quickly and was always found not too far away from the the girl. They said it was because Imelda had been strong and watched out for everyone in life that her alebrije reflected her strength. However, she had another theory, that when she passed on Pepita had been there to protect the family, so she didn’t have to any longer. That she could truly rest in peace. 

Watching her gatita with a thoughtful expression she smiled lightly as she watched Oscar step out with a giant vase of water that he poured into the ceramic basin by the garden. Felipe joined him, always never too far behind his brother and walked directly up to Pepita scratching her head with a content smile. They spoke, either words to each other or Pepita, and then laughed at something she couldn’t hear. Her smile widened a bit and she placed a hand to her chest. 

It had been the three of them for a long time. In the beginning, she had mustered up the courage to protect the three of them providing the best she could when their Papa had passed. It wasn’t always the outside struggles that effected them as well. When they were a family, and her Papa had owned the farm she had grew up on, things had been simpler and far different. Felipe and Oscar were rarely seen together, as young boys they struggled to find their individual personalities while even their own father would mistake one for the other. They couldn’t stand to be in the same room for too long. Dinner was the longest length of time anyone saw them interact with one another, until it came time for bed and they all slept in the same room. It frustrated their Papa when they would refuse to do chores that required both their help. But she understood their need to feel independent from each other. Still, that had all changed when their Papa had passed on. 

For a moment, she was pulled from her reminiscence by a small commotion then. Watching them, Imelda rolled her eyes as Oscar splashed Felipe with some water, he turned yelling something and wiping at his bones. Pepita gave him a strong lick and he jumped back throwing his arms in the air. While Oscar laughed at his brother, the flying jaguar approached him from behind giving him the same lick and earning the identical reaction. Imelda couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped her. It certainly had all changed, she thought with a happy sigh.

To the average passerby, no one would be able to tell the difference between her brothers. With family they had the few slip ups here and there, calling one brother the other, a move that would’ve drawn a sour reaction when they were children but was laughed off now. But Imelda never messed up, even as a child, which would surprise their father beyond belief. She hadn’t found it strange though, they were her family after all.

She started to hum again, closing her eyes to Oscar and Felipe who sat with Pepita now as she drank her water. They scratched behind her ears talking with each other. The humming took on a familiar tune she remembered as she sat there still thinking about a past over a hundred years ago 

“Cuando el mundo al girar  
Como un rojo globo que al cielo va  
Y mis pies en el suelo no están  
Mi ancla tú serás...”

She sung gently and to herself. She had sung that song to Felipe and Oscar many nights when they were in the orphanage. It was meant to comfort them from bad dreams and dwelling on what they had lost, yet it seemed to make her feel more at ease. She still had been only 16 and had been so afraid she would fail in protecting them. 

Things got better though. 

They grew closer, as the only family they had, they held onto one another like an anchor. The twins were soon inseparable and looked to Imelda more as a mother, than a big sister. They discovered they had a knack for crafting wood, and would make small flutes out of branches to sell along with the food. Some nights they’d go to Mariachi Plaza and sand guitars or fix parts on pop up stages that the musicians would perform on. She had learned to restring the guitars and tune them for the performers, she was quite good at it for having braided her mother’s hair and her own for so long. Nights like that brought in more money for them, despite how long and tiring they could be. Soon after they started working nights in the Plaza she met Hector, and the boys grew fiercely jealous and protective. With no father to watch out for her when it came to things such as romance, they took it upon themselves to reverse the roles and look out for her, like she had for them. Eventually though, they warmed up to her soon to be husband and after they were married, the four of them had moved into a small home that she had worked so hard to achieve. With a sense of accomplishment she looked forward to the next chapter of a better life, one that started with expecting her own child. Hector had been very protective of her while she was pregnant with Coco, but her brothers, which were glued to each other’s sides now, had found a way to glue themselves to her as well. Thinking back on it, even when she was alive, she thought their extreme closeness wasn’t only because she was carrying a precious weight. There had been a fear of losing their sister, who had been their mother figure, the way they had lost the mother they never got to know. Imelda had been born with her Papa’s will though, and had nothing but a wonderful pregnancy and birth. 

Coco had been spoiled not only by Hector but her Tios as well. They always volunteered to baby sit the little girl whenever they could, or whenever Ernesto canceled because he had some sort of gig. They would drop whatever they were doing and excitedly looked forward to spending an evening with their niece. 

And when Hector had left...

They were there when Coco cried at night, sometimes sneaking her into their bedroom to sleep, when her mother had been up all day working hard and was too exhausted to move. Imelda found herself tucked into bed many nights when she knew she hadn’t fallen asleep there, knowing one of them had taken care to watch out for her. They cooked dinner for them and made sure to get Coco ready for school on mornings that she was busy. They helped Imelda build the workshop that furthered the stability she aimed to create for her family once again. Contrary to popular belief that it had been her, it was actually the two of them who had given Julio all of the scary speeches her Papa would have, when Coco first introduced him to them. They had even walked her down the aisle at her wedding and had helped Imelda build an extension onto the family home for her and Julio. Imelda would admit that for a long time she had relied on her brothers, just as much as they had on her when they were children. 

She didn’t notice the door that led from the garden to the living room open, as she continued to hum to herself. When she felt the dips on either side of the couch her eyes opened and she faltered in the song. Sitting on either side of her was a twin with a warm smile and comforting gaze. Distantly she could hear the other family members somewhere in the home; whirring of machines in the workshop where Julio and Victoria were filling out the day’s orders, the sound of Rosita bouncing about the kitchen as she prepared tonite’s dinner and Coco talking to her Papa and playing with Dante in the courtyard out front. But it was all background noise that she tuned out and focused on the three of them alone in the room. Oscar, who always had a penchant for getting into some sort of trouble and who loved the color blue, slid a long arm around her shoulders squeezing with brotherly affection. Felipe, who had always been a silent bookworm despite falling for his brother’s schemes and who liked to collect old watches, took her hand intwining their fingers and placed another over them. 

“Sing it again –,” Felipe said.

“Por favor, hermanita mayor?” Oscar finished.

Her chest tightened at the endearment she hadn’t heard them use in such a long time. She squeezed Felipe’s hands and leaned closer into Oscar’s side. She started to hum again and their eyes brightened before closing with contentment listening to the song.

“Mi anacla tú serás...”

**Author's Note:**

> The song Imelda is humming is Mi Ancala by Mindy Gledhill, it’s so pretty! I only put down the first part but the whole piece is beautiful. Check it out! I hope you like this little one-shot, I really like the sibling fluff and seeing Imelda’s sweet side. 
> 
> Song Translation:
> 
> While the world is spinning  
> Like a red balloon going toward heaven  
> And my feet are not on the ground  
> My anchor, you will be
> 
> https://youtu.be/dNF7PL6PSbo


End file.
